


Branded

by icaruslaughed



Series: Suptober20 [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x18, Canon Compliant, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26832601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icaruslaughed/pseuds/icaruslaughed
Summary: My submission for day 4 of suptober.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Suptober20 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955047
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Branded

The gaze that a certain pair of blue eyes cast upon the back of Dean’s head felt like a brand. Guilt weighed him down as he fought to keep his chin up, eyes forward, unmoving, unflinching, every ounce the soldier John trained him to be. Because if he were to make it through this alive, he had to be cold and unforgiving as a marble statue. He remembered Anna describing angels like that, but if it were true, then Cas must be the furthest thing from an angel because no statue could cry that many tears. Not even the feelings elicited by the furthest pits of Hell could compare to those written all over his best friend’s face, indescribable grief and guilt and sorrow and anger and _loss_ , loss so earth-shattering Dean knew it must have been reflected on his own face because how could it _not_? How could anyone see that and not immediately feel its weight; it’s contagious, more so than disease, than happiness, than love. 

“Dean, don’t do that, not to me. Please, just look at me.” Dean’s lip trembled and his resolve almost, _almost_ , slipped. Almost. But he’s had forty one years worth of practise keeping it together for his dad, then Sammy, then Cas and everyone else who he’s chosen to love and take care of.

“You really think you’re in a position to tell _me_ what to do? I could tell you the same thing, Cas! How could you do this to me? After everything we’ve been through, together,” voice breaking, he shook his head, turning to face Cas, “I can’t lose you again.” He pulled Cas into a tight hug, hiding his face in Cas’s neck, tears falling freely now but Dean could hardly find it in himself to care. He just gripped the trenchcoat tightly, remembering the barn where he and Castiel first met.

It was cold in the barn, a little drafty, but it added to the ambience of Castiel’s overly dramatic arrival. Dean remembered stabbing the angel in the heart, believing him to be a demon. He remembered being terrified—and later, guilty—when Ruby’s knife didn’t work. He remembered looking into impossibly blue eyes, owned by a being who’d forged a bond between them so powerful it left a brand on his skin; he remembered those same eyes narrowing in confusion when he couldn’t seem to wrap his head around why anyone would bother to save him from damnation.

He remembered escaping from the Heavenly Greenroom to go find Chuck, the weight of what he convinced some poor bastard who had the misfortune of knowing him to do only hitting him years later. He fell in love with the angel then, he thinks, when he told a prophet of the Lord (God, actually) that they were making it up as they go. 

He remembered the first time he truly lost Cas, and it wasn’t when he walked into that damn lake, or even when he swallowed up all of Purgatory. No, it was when he lied to them, when he left Dean no choice other than to trap him in a ring of Holy Fire. He never forgot that conversation:

“ _When crap like this comes around, we deal with it. Like we always have. What we don't do, is we don't go out and make another deal with the devil!_ ”

“ _It sounds so simple when you say it like that. Where were you when I needed to hear it?_ ”

“ _I was there. Where were you?_ ”

Another brand, another scar left on his soul.

He remembered nearly killing his best friend, high on rage fuelled by the Mark of Cain. He remembered the dull thud of his Cas’s angel blade and he drove it into the book, just inches from his head. “ _Next time, I won’t miss_.” It was a lie; he could never hurt Cas, not like that, not even completely out of his mind, because there was some part of him that knew it was wrong. He trusted that part of him would stop him before it was too late. He pretended to ask himself what part that was, what it meant. Before he even laid a finger on him, Cas answered his question: he loved Cas, Cas knew he loved him, and yet he still didn’t process it until years later, when he thought it was too late.

When Cas died that last time, after God had left and they had lost all their other friends and allies, it seemed as if there was truly no hope, not anymore. It struck Dean then, like an angel blade to the heart as he fell to his knees next to the body of his best friend. “ ** _I loved him. I_ ** **love** **_him_** **,** ” he remembered thinking. “ ** _And I will do anything to get him back_** **.** ” So when Jack accidentally brought Cas back, he swore he wouldn’t take it for granted. And he didn’t, not immediately anyways.

Old habits die hard, they say, and if that ain’t the truth… Good things never last, either, because apparently somewhere in all of the mess of whatever happened between Dean and Cas, Cas made a goddamn deal with the fucking Empty. Dean could see the guilt in Cas’s eyes, put there at the prospect of leaving him alone _again_. He saw it because he knew it was reflected in his own eyes, but that still doesn’t make it _okay_. Anger began to rear its ugly head within him but while he might once have let it control him, he shoved it down. He would not spend Cas’s last moments angry, not again. He’d made that mistake far too many times.

“Dean I-“ Cas began, an apology written on every line of his face.

“Don’t,” Dean interrupted, “I trust you; there’s probably a really good reason for why you made that deal, and honestly I don’t really need to hear what it is.” He wasn’t sure if he spoke more to himself or Cas. Perhaps both. “I’ll be fine,” he lied.

“That’s... not what I was going to say.” Dean furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Cas took it as an invitation to continue. Taking a deep, steadying breath he finished, “I’m sorry. And I-I love you.”

Dean shook his head, a small, sad smile making an appearance upon his face. He wanted to scream at Cas, “How could you say that to me _now_?! After everything, why _now_?!” He wanted to turn and run and run and run and never look back because Cas can’t love him: it’ll kill him. Or worse. Most of all, he wanted to tell him he loved him too, that he has since that day nearly twelve years ago when Cas rebelled...for _him_. So he did the next best thing. He brought one hand up to Cas’s face and the other to his waist, pulling him close, and pressing their lips together.

Cas kissed him back after a moment’s hesitation, a moment that may as well have been an eternity. Dean pulled his angel impossibly close, trying to say with his lips and tongue what his words could not. Cas sighed into the kiss, one hand cupping the back of Dean’s neck while the other hand, still bloody from the spell they were trying to cast before the world turned upside down, laid to rest over the handprint he left years ago, when he was just an angel pulling the Righteous Man from Hell. 

It was in that brief moment of bliss that the Empty came, sneaking through the shadows until its grip tightened on Cas’s being like a cosmic vice, yanking him away into Nothing in an instant. As he felt himself dragged away from the one truly good thing he’d ever had in all his eons of existence, he reached out for the mark he left on Dean’s soul. 

Not fast enough.

Too fast, Cas left Dean. The blink of an eye, one flap of a hummingbird’s wings. He left Dean.

Cas left Dean. 

Alone. Dean was alone now. He lost everything, and now he lost Cas. Cas was gone.

He had nothing of Cas. Nothing but a bloody handprint on his jacket, left over the spot where an angel held him with so much care, so much power, so much _love_ , that it left a mark.

A brand.

It was all he had left


End file.
